Problem: A chess team has $26$ members. However, only $16$ members attended the last meeting: half of the girls attended but all of the boys attended. How many girls are on the chess team?
Let there be $B$ boys and $G$ girls. Since every member is either a boy or a girl, $B+G=26$. Also, we have $\frac{1}{2}G+B=16$. Subtracting the second equation from the first, we have:

$\frac{1}{2}G=26-16=10\implies G=20$.

Thus there are $\boxed{20}$ girls on the chess team.